Tbf this is a scenario I defo see happening with a small caveat: Kurdistan starts off as an ally with the Arab states to take over Assyria, but after the conquest the Arabs and the Kurds become more and more antagonistic over how to divide Assyria with Kurdistan wanting it all with the Arabs wanting the same, which leads to another war where the Arabs call in the Turks to split Kurdistan between the two states.
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
Honestly, I don't think that 1945 Turkey has much say in the topic, Moscow, London and DC will decide.
Having said that, I think it is most likely that the Big Three will enforce a neutral Turkey. London cannot afford a pro-soviet Turkey and the Red Fleet to end up with access to open seas. Even the Americans will see the folly of that. At the same time, Stalin cannot afford a pro-West Turkey. Russia has been invaded twice in the span of a generation through Turkey/OE. And his own homeland was one of the targets in both cases. Moreover, to have NATO controlling Samsun and Sinop is a big no-no. In OTL Turkey was not a defeated enemy but a sovereign neutral country with a big army when the USSR was exhausted and devastated. They couldn't force her not to enter NATO, at best they could bluff. However, now Moscow has a say on the post war status of the country. And if they cannot make it into a satellite, then the next best option is neutrality.
The problem is not that they lost land, but what kind of land was lost. From a security perspective, Greece having a big bridgehead in Anatolia is a grave threat. Imagine Italy losing Piedmont, Germany losing land on the right bank of the Rhine, of Britain losing Kent. Especially after losing a string of wars would rightly make any government paranoid of their security, especially when it comes to advantages of geography.
From an economic perspective it is the equivalent of Germany losing both Silesia and the Ruhr. The majority of 1913 ottoman exports came from TTL's Asiatic Greece and Thrace. If they lose most of their chrome to Kurdistan and Greece, the blow will be harder. I can see how the loss of those lands would translate into "they robbed us of our livelihood".
That's a very good question.
Certainly a lot of young males have been casualties of war. Would it be more than other WW2 countries? I don't really know. The civilian population though should not have suffered much - at least compared to other Axis and Allied combatants. The Western Allies are either around the greco-turkish border or at the periphery of core territory (Slim and co). I doubt fighting will get close to major population centers before an armistice is signed. On the other hand, the treatment of the Red Army as it advances will be certainly brutal. However, even in their case I doubt they will advance further than e.g. Erzincan before an armistice. Therefore, I think that the vast majority of the civilian population will escape the horrors of war.
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And that’s unless they decide to divide Turkey between western and eastern halves like Germany. And if that happens I highly doubt there’ll ever be an agreement to make Turkey neutral considering it never happened for Germany.
Rethinking this paragraph. There's a strong possibility that post-WWII Turkey will have its Lost Generation moment. The impact of that will definitely depend on how badly the country is partitioned.
A Turkey post-WWII either way is definitely going to have a massive identity crisis with the Turks struggling to make sense of the consequences of the war and the punishment on their nation for the genocides against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. Assuming Turkey manages to be Austria-style neutral somehow (and I'll be surprised if that happens), I wouldn't be surprised if it experiences a Years of Lead-esque period of civil unrest with so many factions and ideologies trying to steer a nation that's struggling to find a path.
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Turkey still does have a say of shorts. It controls a huge not particularly well developed land area and still has an army. Completely destroying that army and occupying the entirety of Anatolia is doable for the Allies at this point but would cost time and casualties. So a skillful negotiator on the Turkish part would likely have some wiggle room. Not a lot, but some as long as the basic objectives of the big three are met.
As long as Turkey is not treated the way of post-war Germany... well we have the example of Japan to compare and itself from OTL on how it will be thinking of the world wars. And a pretty logical question to make is which great power is looking the greater villain to Turkish public perception TTL? Russia or Britain and by extension the west? After all I can easily see Turkish nationalist rhetoric saying Greece is just a foreign puppet created and used against Turkey.
I theorize that who ever the public hates more is whoever annexes the most land from Turkey. The Soviets got territorial claims on eastern Anatolia, the Kurds will want their own state, the Greeks are going to want more land in retribution, and the French might get more to add to Syria. I wouldn’t be surprised if the public hates everyone equally.
At what point did anyone from the wartime German, Italian, Japanese, Hungarian, Romanian or Bulgarian have a chance to sit down and negotiate their post war borders? They started the war, they lost, vae victis. The key factors is that the overwhelming majority of Anatolia has Turkish super majorities and while the Allies will be up for a bit of ethnic cleansing, they were elsewhere at this time, see the Sudetenland or various Hungarian populated areas, there are ethical and logistical constraints that will limit the areas subject to population transfer to those with a very clear strategic or historic reason. This is course applies less to the Soviets but they have constraints as well.
Italy did get a bit of wiggle room in Trieste. Romania did actually get Transylvania back which I doubt was something to be taken for granted. Bulgaria... Bulgaria got to keep Dobrutja from Romania, avoided the entirety of Greek territorial demands at Paris... and even made territorial demands of its own on Greece claiming basically that "hey we are good communists now unlike them evul Greek monarchofascists who refuse revolution "
Bulgaria was in many ways a special case though: in the 1920s, for a time, the Bulgarian CP was the strongest in the Balkans, and it could still count on men like Dimitrov who had Stalin's ear. And Bulgarian Russophilia was well known even during WW2; let's remember that Bulgaria did not actually declare war on the USSR and did not participate in the Eastern Front. Since Bulgaria was 'liberated' by the Red Army alone, this was a major boon to them. A Bulgaria that is even partially occupied by Western Allied (and especially Greek) forces will likely get a different treatment ITTL.
That's actually very bad for Turkey. Turkey stripping down their actions in their education system would be a lot more effective because of the low level of development in the country, and as the more cosmopolitan areas of turkey in western Anatolia are not coming back the more conservative population in central Anatolia would be very susceptible to propaganda like this. This'll make relations between Turkey and most neighbours in the ME be quite contentious, which will hamper Turkey's economic development. I don't think we'd see Turkey have a good time post WWII and beyond.
I defo see Turkey defo finding themselves bitterly set against Greece too and see any ally of Greece as anti Turkey as the hatred runs that deep. Which puts them outside of the Western alliance in general.
My guess for Turkey's future would be a Kemalist Descendant allying themselves with Ba'athists and fuck themselves over.
Tbf speaking of Istria would Italy hold Istria as the chetniks can't hold it and the communist partisans would enact ethnic cleansing?
I do think turkey would have little recourse as they'd want to at least keep the lands they held before WWII and I'd think both sides would just ignore it. Turkey defo would be pissed about it but they'd bide their time and attempt reconquest of several territories. As the Soviets are a lot more flexible and they could easily twist the reasoning for Turkey's reconquests (for example Kurdistan is an Imperialist construct! Greek Anatolia is Fascist!) would be highly attractive to the Turks who seek to return their country to the glory days of old.
But that wasn't Mussolini, that was Bonomi after Badoglio launched his coup, as far as we're aware there's no one in Turkey in a position to pull something similar off and unlike the Italian coup plotters the Turks need to deal with both the Allies and the Soviets.
Romania got Transylvania back from Hungary, because the Soviets regarded them as victims of the Germans and as partial compensation for losing Dobrutja and Moldova. But it was Soviet and to a lesser extent Allied decision making, the Romanians weren't in the room when the lines were drawn.
Based on that precedent the only people in the room when the new borders of Turkey are drawn will be the Big 3 and if Greece plays all it's cards perfectly they might be able to sit in the corner and make requests. No Turks will be in the building.
I highly doubt that a post-war Turkey will ever be in a place to want to assert revanchist claims or tolerate anyone in power making said claims or making alliances with countries to partition their neighbors. They've had their asses whooped over and over; and after this war, I don't ever see Turkey trying this stuff ever again. Not to mention the US and the USSR are going to support Turkey's neighbors to prove that they'll absolutely back their right to exist and tell Turkey that their days of aggressive expansion are done for.
As for the partition, I did research on the effects of the partitioning of Germany and the expulsion of Germans in OTL. At first the WAllies didn't care too much until the refugee crisis caused them to have serious regrets over letting Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line annexed in Poland (with Kaliningrad going to Russia) and were very concerned that further annexations will encourage sympathy for the Nazis. Depending on how bad a refugee crisis gets with the Soviets, Kurds, and Greeks partitioning Turkey, the WAllies might force all sides to stop somewhere not just to stem a refugee crisis but also prevent any Turks from sympathizing with their Axis leaders. Though in the case of the Soviets I highly doubt they'd do anything.
Also saw an ethnic map of Turkey:
If Wilsonian Armenian borders are going to be established, that's going to cause serious tensions with the Kurds living in the Van region and other areas within those borders. Either Stalin decides to redraw Armenian borders and have lands in western Pontus added to Armenia instead, or he proposes the Kurdish state take more land west and get their own coastline as a compromise.
As for the partition, I did research on the effects of the partitioning of Germany and the expulsion of Germans in OTL. At first the WAllies didn't care too much until the refugee crisis caused them to have serious regrets over letting Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line annexed in Poland (with Kaliningrad going to Russia) and were very concerned that further annexations will encourage sympathy for the Nazis. Depending on how bad a refugee crisis gets with the Soviets, Kurds, and Greeks partitioning Turkey, the WAllies might force all sides to stop somewhere not just to stem a refugee crisis but also prevent any Turks from sympathizing with their Axis leaders. Though in the case of the Soviets I highly doubt they'd do anything.
Also saw an ethnic map of Turkey:
If Wilsonian Armenian borders are going to be established, that's going to cause serious tensions with the Kurds living in the Van region and other areas within those borders. Either Stalin decides to redraw Armenian borders and have lands in western Pontus added to Armenia instead, or he proposes the Kurdish state take more land west and get their own coastline as a compromise.
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As for the partition, I did research on the effects of the partitioning of Germany and the expulsion of Germans in OTL. At first the WAllies didn't care too much until the refugee crisis caused them to have serious regrets over letting Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line annexed in Poland (with Kaliningrad going to Russia) and were very concerned that further annexations will encourage sympathy for the Nazis. Depending on how bad a refugee crisis gets with the Soviets, Kurds, and Greeks partitioning Turkey, the WAllies might force all sides to stop somewhere not just to stem a refugee crisis but also prevent any Turks from sympathizing with their Axis leaders. Though in the case of the Soviets I highly doubt they'd do anything.
Also saw an ethnic map of Turkey:
If Wilsonian Armenian borders are going to be established, that's going to cause serious tensions with the Kurds living in the Van region and other areas within those borders. Either Stalin decides to redraw Armenian borders and have lands in western Pontus added to Armenia instead, or he proposes the Kurdish state take more land west and get their own coastline as a compromise.
I highly doubt Wilsonian Armenia is happening, while it's not my story I suspect that the same principles will be followed as in OTL:
- No stranded minorities to provide an excuse for revanchism
- Territorial and resulting ethnic changes based on either strategic considerations or historical, ideally both.
The need to avenge the Armenian Genocide will be used as an excuse though, especially since Armenians used to live across Turkey. And besides Stalin can easily deport Armenians there as he has deported ethnic minorities all across the country.
We'll see but I think that's a line of thought that will go further on AH.com than it would have gone at the Yalta Conference.
The Potsdam Conference legitimized Poland's westward expansion and the expulsion of Germans across Eastern Europe so I don't think what I said will be too out there.
This is an interesting point but I think it’ll happen in the opposite order since the Turks are likely to surrender first. Turkey will likely get brutalized in the peace deal, whatever its final borders looks like. After experiencing that and the consequences the Western Allies might very well refuse to move Polands borders westward, or not nearly as as far.
If that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised if Stalin breaks his promise to the WAllies not to expand the Polish border westward which could cause serious drama. Or at least deport the Germans to Siberian gulags instead of West Germany.
That happened because Stalin wanted to ethnically cleanse Western Ukraine and Belarus of Poles as part of a general scheme to push the Soviet Union west and needed somewhere to put the displaced Poles, coupled with a general feeling that a smaller Germany was less of a threat. It was not because of the need to avenge the various genocides the Germans committed. The various genocide the Germans committed were vital in giving Stalin the cover to do this, no one was feeling sympathetic to Germans in late 1945, but the vengeance for German crimes wasn't the reason.
Yeah and Stalin would definitely use similar excuses for Turkey. Also, from what I read a lot of the expulsions of Germans was also motivated by vengeance from various collaborators who wanted to get back at the Germans. And I wouldn't be surprised if Stalin did do this for vengeful reasons tbh.
Even if it wouldn't necessary be out of revenge for the Armenian Genocide, Stalin can make up that excuse.